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This last couple of weeks have been bloody cold for those of you that didn't notice. So as you could imagine the sheep have been needing plenty of hay everyday to keep them going. The bike hasn't had any problems to date, which is good.
Yesterday, we started to house some of the ewes as we are due to scan this week. So, I got to test the bike's handling rounding up the sheep on all sorts of different terrain, ranging from steep banks, ridge and furrow to flat fields so overall, it got a full test.
On the banks the bike felt very stable and had plenty of grunt to get up to sheep on the steep parts and good brakes on the way down. They do seem to squeak when you go along a bank, but I just guess that's the front wish bone twist. Turning on the ridge and furrow, the bike showed very little sign that it wanted to turn over when turning sharply. On the flat, the bike gets to its top speed pretty quickly, you can really tell it's got EFI electronic fuel injection. At high speeds, there's no wheel wobble or anything like that.
Things I like and things I dislike so far on the Honda are:
Likes:
- The bike feels safe on the banks
- It's a quiet bike for it's engine size
- Amazing power to weight ratio
Dislikes:
- Seat is very hard and doesn't take much of the shock on the bumps
- The seat has split, not ripped, split
- They don't have a jack plug/power point for a lamp or slug pelleter
- The front and rear cargo racks have been designed for looks: You can't sit a bucket of wheat on there without it tipping back or forwards
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Well this weather is a nice change it's lovely and cold out on the farm. We had our shoot last Saturday. The bike was used all day to ferry beaters and the odd walking gun around the farm. It's amazing how many people you can get on a bike and logic trailer (4 on the bike 6 in the trailer), but it did make her grunt a little over the bridges. But, yet again, the Honda plugged on and got the job done.
With the quad bike being such a nickable item, I have fitted it with a Cat 2 alarm made by Bulldog. I bought it whilst being in America doing the 1000 mile harvest along with a few other random things.
Anyway, the alarm has a remote on a key ring which you can set to either speak and tell the thieves to get off it, or just a very loud buzzing sound that should make anyone run for their lives.
Also, for Christmas I received a rifle rest that can be fitted to the front of the bike and bends round the handle bars (as shown). Now, this is were a jack plug on the side of the handle bars would have been good for the lamp, but that's an extra now.